


tugging at your sleeve

by shineyma



Series: where'd you go [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Some problems are easy to fix. Others, not so much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da?

Universe jumping, as it happens, is a hell of a head rush. Grant looks around just long enough to make sure he’s in the right universe—or at least a better one—and then, reassured by the familiar office and the presence of his second, flops onto his back.

“Fuck,” he says, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Never doing that again.”

“You okay, sir?” Markham asks. By the sound of it, he’s closing up that open box that presumably started this whole mess. Grant makes a mental note to have it tossed in a volcano or something.

“Peachy.” Twelve fucking hours of being locked back in that damn hole in the ground, forced to play nice with Coulson and worrying about—

Wait. Shit.

“What did he do?” he demands, pushing to his feet.

Markham blinks.

“The other me, Markham, keep up,” he clarifies impatiently. “What did he do?”

“Not much,” Markham says, expression clearing. There’s a false note to it, though, something that makes Grant think maybe his confusion was just him playing dumb, waiting to see a sign that Grant was really Grant. “Hicks kept him busy taking that old outpost of Pierce’s in South Africa.”

That outpost’s at the bottom of his to-do list, mostly because there’s nothing to it. “That couldn’t have taken twelve hours.”

“It didn’t,” Markham admits, falling easily into step as Grant leaves the room. “Dr. Simmons kept him distracted until we retrieved the artifact that switched you, and—sir?”

The cold and sharp _something_ that’s taken hold of his lungs must be showing on his face. “And what?”

“And then Aldridge invented an emergency in the labs to free Simmons up,” Markham says, a little slowly. “She had the artifact figured out in minutes, told us exactly how to switch you back. He didn’t have time to do any damage.”

Except to Jemma.

“Something wrong, sir?” Markham prompts.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ve had a fucking awful day. I need a shower; we can fully debrief tomorrow.”

Markham, smart man that he is, looks skeptical—but if he’s smart enough to see something’s up, he’s _also_ smart enough not to question it.

“Yes, sir,” he says. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah.”

They split at an intersection—Markham towards the offices (probably on his way to make eyes at Evie) and Grant towards the barracks. Two hallways later, he skips the right turn that’d take him to his rooms and continues straight towards Jemma’s.

The universe he spent the day stuck in was different from this one on a lot of levels. His double was still a prisoner, for one thing. For another, he’d never met, let alone _loved_ Kara, and didn’t give a damn about Skye, either.

Jemma, on the other hand…

With the benefit of hindsight—not to mention emotional distance—Grant can admit that he was kind of obsessed with Skye for a while after John’s death. He needed a distraction after losing the closest thing he had to family and Skye became a fixation. He played her all wrong, creeping the hell out of the whole team in the process.

If that other Coulson is to be believed, Grant’s double took it to a whole other level—but not with Skye, with Jemma. The words _traumatized_ and _abuse_ got tossed around. And once Coulson had satisfied himself that Grant really was a different man and hadn’t just somehow gotten his hands on a change of clothes and a load of weapons, once he agreed to start looking into just how the hell Grant had ended up there…

Grant’s gotten used to Jemma being in love with him. He doesn’t think about it much, but it’s a great ego boost, the way all he needs to do to make her day is _look_ at her. She lights right up every time he enters the room; it’s just a given.

That other Jemma—small and quiet and flinching every time he spoke—was a hell of an unpleasant shock.

And just because he doesn’t return her feelings doesn’t mean Grant’s _heartless_. Jemma’s his and he takes good care of her. He’s spent the past few hours worrying like hell over what his apparently disturbed double might do, finding Jemma within easy reach after being denied access for years.

And that was _before_ hearing she got dropped in front of him as a distraction.

Markham would’ve said something if that asshole physically harmed her, but Grant’s got plenty of non-physical weapons in his repertoire. Just because she’s not sporting bruises doesn’t mean she hasn’t been hurt.

Still, Markham’s a perceptive guy. If anything truly terrible had gone down, he’d have picked up on it.

That semi-optimistic thought carries him the rest of the way to Jemma’s quarters. She answers his knock within seconds—and promptly goes stark white.

Not a great sign.

“It’s me,” he promises. “The real me. Fresh back from a twelve hour trip to Vault D.”

“Oh. Good.” One of her hands is out of sight—still on the doorknob, he thinks—but the other comes up to grip the doorframe, knuckles just as white as her face. “Are you all right? You weren’t hurt, were you? The team in that other universe, they didn’t…?”

“They weren’t happy to see me,” he says in a massive understatement, “but they didn’t hurt me, no. I’m fine. Can’t say I missed that hole in the ground, but it’s been a while since I got to talk circles around Coulson. Turns out that stupid scrunchy face he makes when he’s pissed is constant throughout the multiverse.”

Jemma chuckles weakly. Not like she thinks it’s funny; more like she thinks she’s _supposed_ to. Which she is. “I see. But you’re sure—?”

“Not a scratch,” he promises. “The barrier stayed up the whole time. None of them got anywhere near me.”

She darts a little glance at his hands—no, his _wrists_ —and it clicks.

“I didn’t hurt me, either,” he says, as patiently as he can. “Suicide attempts only work for the long game; it’d take a hell of a lot longer than twelve hours for me to resort to _that_ again.”

A little—a _very_ little—of the tension melts out of Jemma. She slumps sideways, resting her temple against the doorframe.

“I’m glad. And I’m sorry for nagging, I just…I was worried.”

“Understandable,” he says. “And speaking of worry, you didn’t look too happy to see me just now. You okay?”

She straightens, pasting on a smile. “Of course! I simply wasn’t expecting you. I thought you’d want…I don’t know.”

“A shower? A nap?” he suggests. “Because yeah, I definitely do. I just wanna talk to you first.”

“Okay.”

“Can I come in?” he asks, after a long second in which she shows no intention of moving aside.

Jemma starts. “Right! Yes!”

She backs out of the doorway, giving him space to enter, and it doesn’t escape his notice that she backs away even further when he actually does. By the time he’s done closing and locking the door, there’s a good four feet between them.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asks.

Grant takes a second to look her over. Her arms are crossed tightly beneath her breasts, hands fisted in her sleeves. There’s no sign of pain in her posture, but there _is_ plenty of fear.

Every signal she’s giving just _screams_ ‘keep away’. He doesn’t like it.

“What did he do?” he asks. He makes it gentler than he did for Markham—and unlike Markham, Jemma doesn’t pretend to need clarification.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “He just—nothing.”

“Jemma.”

She flinches, looking—just for a second—so much like her double that his blood boils.

“He was angry,” she admits—slowly, like every word is being dragged out of her. “He didn’t like that we had separate rooms…or that I was in mine, instead of waiting in his—yours—for him to come back.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Jemma raises one shoulder in a move too jerky to be a shrug. It’s more like—

—like she’s trying to hide something.

Fury spurs him forward, and by the time he gives thought to how it might scare Jemma, he’s already caught her by the hip with one hand and pushed her hair aside with the other. Sure enough, there’s a series of reddening bruises all down the side of her neck.

No. Not bruises.

Hickies.

“He only kissed me,” she says, very quietly.

Grant thumbs one of the hickies. It makes her breath catch—and not in a good way. “And marked you.”

He’s not sure how he feels about that. (Or even why he feels anything at all.)

“Well, yes. There was quite a bit said about—about me belonging to him,” she says. “And about showing it.”

She’s never been so tense against him. Usually all he has to do is put a hand on her and she melts, but now…

“He scared you.”

Jemma nods, eyes dropping away from his.

“I’m sorry.” He kisses her forehead and then lets her go, stepping back to give her some room. “What can I do?”

Her gaze snaps back up. “Do?”

“To make it better. What can I do?”

She’s gobsmacked, which would be funnier if it wasn’t in response to him wanting to help her. Just how far did that asshole go, that it’s _shocking_ Grant cares about her being traumatized?

“I—nothing,” she says, rallying. “I’m fine, Grant, really. I just had a minor fright, that’s all. Give me a day or two and I’ll be right as rain.”

“You’re lying.” She’s better at it than she used to be, but her posture’s still screaming terror—and her arms are still crossed. Dead giveaway. “What all did he do? The _truth_ ,” he adds when she opens her mouth.

“He…intimidated me,” she says. “He shouted a bit…and held me very tightly.” She unclenches her fists, flattening her hands over the fabric she’s been gripping. “I…probably have bruises.”

Goddamnit.

“What else?” he asks, once he’s sure he can manage it calmly.

“Nothing,” she says—but she’s not meeting his eyes.

He starts to say her name then bites his tongue, remembering how it made her flinch. Better to let his silence prompt her instead.

“He—it wasn’t his intention to threaten me,” she says, all in a rush. “He was just—well, he liked dirty talk, like you do.” She smiles weakly. “It was only that I knew he wasn’t you, and he frightened me. So I wasn’t sure I wanted…”

She trails off, but Grant can fill in the blanks.

He _does_ like dirty talk. He likes to tell her in explicit detail exactly what he’s gonna do to her, likes the way it leaves her desperate and begging before he’s even touched her. But if she wasn’t in the mood to be touched…

It’s all too easy to imagine how the promises his double made would’ve felt like threats.

“That he didn’t mean to didn’t make it any less threatening,” he says, “did it?”

“No,” Jemma admits, voice small.

Grant has no idea what to do here. He knows how to use Jemma’s feelings for him to perfection—he got her to work for him, after all, and she’s stayed here (no doubt against her overactive conscience’s strenuous objections) for months. Keeping her in his bed is easy, but keeping her in his labs?

She’s worked on all kinds of destructive shit in the last few months, and she did it for _him_. Because she’s in love with him and she’ll do anything she can to make sure he lets her stay close.

Now she can’t get far enough away.

This situation is in dire need of damage control. Problem is, what kind? Physical comfort would be his first stop, but it’s clearly way out of the question. Without it…

Huh.

“Okay,” he says. “I need a shower and my nice, king-sized, not-in-a-cell bed. If you wanna join me—in either or both—you’re more than welcome to. If not, no big deal. And if you change your mind in the middle of the night, you know where to find me. No sex required.”

Jemma’s brow furrows a little. “What do you mean?”

Not like he’s said anything all that complicated, but he’ll admit her confusion isn’t too surprising. He likes his space; he doesn’t mind Jemma spending the night after sex, but he doesn’t offer cuddling on its own. And he’s sure as hell never given her an open invitation. He initiates, she doesn’t.

“I thought being around me might help you,” he says. “But if it won’t, I don’t wanna make things worse. So the choice is yours.”

She stares at him with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he continues. “I just want to make you feel better. So you let me know how I can do that, okay?”

The verbal reassurance is helping already, he can see that. Framing it as her choice helps even more. Now’s the time to make his exit and let her decide.

When he takes a step towards the door, Jemma takes one matching—if halting—step forward.

“You’re sure?” she asks, almost hopefully. “You don’t mind me spending the night without…?”

“I can’t speak for that other guy,” he says, “but for me, you being terrified’s a turn off. If you want sex, I’m glad to have it. If you _don’t_? Then neither do I.”

“I don’t,” she says, quiet and pained. “But I _would_ like to spend the night. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I’m sure,” he promises.

Jemma breathes in deeply, straightening her spine. “Then yes, please. I’ll join you…in your nice, king-sized, not-in-a-cell bed.”

She adds the last bit with a smile that stops just short of teasing, and he grins in return, glad to see a little spirit. Just because he’s not in love with Jemma doesn’t mean he’s okay with her being hurt; it’s good to see her bouncing back already.

“Great,” he says. “Like I said, I want a shower first, so you can take your time. Just come join me when you’re ready for bed.”

She smiles a real smile. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he returns, realizing—kind of belatedly—that he hasn’t said it yet. “Markham told me you’re the one who worked out how to get me back. Should’ve figured you would be.”

Jemma brightens a little under the praise.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “And…I’m glad you’re all right. When I realized he wasn’t you…I was worried.”

“I’m fine,” he says, yet again. “Not something I wanna do ever again, but no harm done.”

“Good,” she says, smiling even wider. “I’m glad.”

She sounds honestly relieved, like his potential trauma bothered her just as much as the actual terror she experienced.

It’s so nice to be loved.

“Yeah,” he says, “me too.”


End file.
